Reporter for The Canberra Times

The federal government is braced for a flood of court cases challenging decisions made under its environmental laws.

Internal Environment Department documents highlight a "marked increase" in cases brought against it since 2011-12 and warn of worse to come.

The department says litigation against high-profile environmental decisions made under the controversial Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, is one of the biggest risks facing the department.

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The briefing says there was a spike in "requests for explanations" for EPBC decisions, which are often precursors to court cases, in late 2013 and early 2014.

The department is currently fighting 16 cases in the courts but received 52 requests for reasons, relating to just 17 decisions, between November 2013 and the beginning of April.

It could even find itself in multiple court actions for the same decision, against a mining company unhappy with restrictions placed on its new project and at the same time being sued by environmental activists saying the conditions are not strict enough.

Environment's internal strategic review is frank in its assessment of the amount of time, and taxpayers' money, it expects to spend in court in the coming months and years.

"The key litigation risk areas for the department relate to challenges by community and interest groups to high-profile environmental decisions made under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act," the document states.

"The department expects to receive more claims against it in the near future.

"Between November 2013 [and] January 2014, the department received a high number of requests for statements of reasons for various EPBC Act decisions, which often precede a party commencing legal action.

"An increase in claims may contribute to cost overruns for 2013-14."

In one such high-profile case, the department is being taken to the Federal Court by a Queensland conservation group trying to use the EPBC to overturn Environment Minister Greg Hunt's approval of dredging and dumping in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area for the contentious Abbot Point coal port.

A spokeswoman for the department said legal action might come from any of a diverse group of interested parties in big or small environmental decisions.

The department also said it was being sued in a number of different forums.

"Of the 16 legal claims, four have been filed with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, 10 have been filed with various registries of the Federal Court of Australia, including one in the full court, and two have been filed with the High Court of Australia," the spokeswoman said in her statement.

But the Environment Department's top public servants in Canberra believe the Abbott government's environmental policies will fundamentally change their role in approvals processes and potentially limit their exposure to legal action.

The government is looking to sign deals with the states that would establish a "one-stop shop" for environmental approvals, sidelining the EPBC Act, which has been on the books since the Howard government.

"The one-stop-shop reforms will fundamentally change the role of the Commonwealth and the department in the area of environmental regulation," the strategic review states.

"The scale of change may not be apparent until the finalisation of agreements with states and territories. However, reductions in the current assessment and approvals function have been anticipated."

33 comments

Not sure why this regime even bothered with having a Dept of the Environment, we certainly don't have a Dept for the Environment. It's an oxymoron and a rubber stamp for those wishing to destroy the environment for monetary gain. Now enter Clive who is not going to allow the passage of the ludicrous DA through the senate. Absolutely no action on CC will prevail.We once proudly protected and encouraged sound practices, now it's open slather from CSG, increased logging by the "ultimate conservationists", dredging and dumping near the GBR, relaxation of clearing laws, "more than enough" NPs, repeal of Marine Parks on the agenda and a myriad of other policies detrimental to our fragile and unique Eco systems.Dig it up, rip it out, chop it down mentality, a betrayal upon us and every living thing we cohabit with. Time to take a stand and be heard.So much for all Gods creatures large and small.

Commenter

A country gal

Date and time

April 22, 2014, 6:51AM

Indeed ACG. To paraphrase Abbott, 'Australia, open for pillage'.I wonder if Abbott has required all his front bench to seek wisdom via the same means he apparently sourced his own. The intellectually light pronouncements and heavy mouth breathing emanating from many of them indicate a few may have had to endure seconds. Gives a whole new meaning to 'The Getting of Wisdom', or at least Abbott's version of it.

Commenter

Warwick

Date and time

April 22, 2014, 8:53AM

Having seen wackos use organisations such as the NSW Environmental Defenders Office to challenge decisions made under the EPBC Act the sooner the Abbott Govt changes this Act the better. Delegation to the States to decide environmental matters is the best way forward or the wackos will keep wasting Govt and Court resources.

Commenter

enough is enough

Date and time

April 22, 2014, 10:01AM

I find it amusing that this current Liberal minority government is so keen on tearing down the environment. As a liberal economist I fully understand that there is more money than can be earned from the economy through protecting the environment than from destroying it. Team Tony the Terrible is no friend of liberal economics.

Commenter

Adam C

Location

Perth

Date and time

April 22, 2014, 10:02AM

Warwick, interesting hearing Carr's legacy to the NSW environment on Q&A, so to Wran's with the Nthn Forests. Vic has recently made it's vegetation clearing laws open slather as has just about every other state. There will be no environmental legacy from this lot, if they could mine Uluru they would.These attitudes along with social division and humanitarian issues were and remain my biggest fears of this regime. They seem to be ticking off the '75' with great rapidity. Private Developments in NPs encouraged. Nothing, absolutely nothing is sacred.Will Clive's decision be enough for a DD? I suspect some very serious horse trading is on the horizon. Urrggh, how did we get to this place? Labor's factional rot and a consistent campaign of negativity backed by the Miners/IPA. My tiny bit for the long weekend- a few hundred provenance seeds into some hyco pots.Should negate some of my 'hot air' of late.

Commenter

A country gal

Date and time

April 22, 2014, 10:14AM

ACG, if the carbon price removal and the DA policy get separated I can see Abbott and Co. pushing hard on Labor to support Direct Action rather than nothing at all. Then they will be able to say either 'Labor opposed it, therefore they care less about climate change than we do' or 'Labor backed direct action, so therefore they agree with us after all'.

The two should not be separated but I imagine they will be.

Commenter

jofek

Date and time

April 22, 2014, 11:06AM

Absolutely ACG. We are becoming like the blackened Shire beneath the control of Sauron. The Sauron like entities that threaten our middle-earth existence are called corporations. Their "black riders" are the lobbyists and the all-seeing eye of Sauron is the massive public surveillance systems that spies on our communications and social media habits. Unfortunately there are no Hobbits or Elves to save us! More and more destructive orcs continue to pour from the vat to exploit our land. Tolkien obviously had his regrets about industrialisation as he has more than a touch of romanticism in his works. I find it difficult reconciling the Catholic Tolkien's neo romantic stance to that of our greedy and visionless, now majority Catholic government.

Commenter

PaxUs

Location

Austerelia

Date and time

April 22, 2014, 11:28AM

So when Labor was taking money from people to allow big-scale mining and foreshore development ... That was?

Commenter

Larry The Lizard.

Date and time

April 22, 2014, 1:14PM

When I look at our fanatical rush towards human annihilation I am reminded of the wards of George Santayana "Fanaticism consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim." We have forgotten that our quest for material goods existed in the context of scarcity and want. It is now being expressed in the context of abundance and excess!!

Commenter

Lesm

Location

Balmain

Date and time

April 22, 2014, 8:50AM

True, Lesm, Marx had an explanation for it, but late stage capitalism has no answer. Growth is essential, even in the face of extraordinary wealth, because governments need constant refueling of employment, to replace the employment-killing of capitalism.

Its a nasty conundrum. It is hard to identify a technology with life changing impacts, like antibiotics, or the refrigerator, or the washing machine. Now our "ground breaking" technologies are doing the same thing as yesteryear, but with slightly more convenience.

So we are consumers of convenience. Bear in mind, though, over the last 30 years, the massive creation of wealth has ended up in as few as 500 pockets.

The American middle class has gone backwards, Abbott wants the same here, and just 500 people control half the wealth of the world. But the engines grind on, the marketers sell more, we are engorged with consumption but continuously feel poor.

There are endless theories and research about this. One postulates that the material consumption satisfies nothing of the mind, or heart, and these are emptied by materialism.

And the other argues that, when we go past the basics of survival, humans are incapable of correctly guiding themselves, because we have never been in this position before.

So we consume and store and hoard, without regard to the type of consumption.

Greed is a malfunction of evolution-based personal survival - greedy people think their lives will be better, that they will survive better, even if the tribe is destroyed.

You see the phenomena in these pages, often, particularly in articles about climate change. The greedy believe that will be able to buy survival, even while the world and our economy collapses.

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